It's a good indication of where the focus will be for the mall owners when they come to redesigning the shopping centres.

In terms of the rate of growth for the mall owners, movies and mobile phone sales were the best performers.

Overall, mobile phones had the biggest sales growth, followed by leisure, which includes nail bars, beauty salons and the "mini majors" stores, such as Priceline.

Movies, thanks to a number of blockbusters over the past year, also provided solid sales growth for the mall landlords.

Traditional department and discount department store sales growth was again negative to sluggish, and they are now looking at smaller spaces when malls are being redeveloped.

The food and fresh markets are making up the shortfall of the fashion and apparel sales, again proving that consumers still like to visit a shopping centre, but are happy to eat there as much as shop.

The international fashion brands have proved their hype by being drawcards for shoppers, young and old, looking for something new and different.

As a result, they will be given more space over time to cater for the demand, while the less popular tenants, including the department stores, will slowly but surely shrink.

Scentre Group, which owns 14 of the top 20 biggest shopping centres in the country, says attention is definitely on the new tenants of technology and the international fashion brands.

The group's chief executive Peter Allen said Scentre is about to embark on a $310 million upgrade of the Warringah Mall in Sydney's northern beaches, which will reflect the changing tastes and demand for the catchment area and beyond.

"The recently announced development at Westfield Warringah Mall will create an exciting shopping experience for Sydney's Northern Beaches customer," Mr Allen said.

"The project will reconfigure the fashion offer through the creation of a two-level parallel mall, introducing 70 new retailers that will be anchored by large format stores to connect a new reconfigured Myer department store and the existing Woolworths and Big W."

Mr Allen said Scentre is focused on the integration of food, fashion, leisure and entertainment experiences in each of its shopping centres to "curate a retail environment that connects shoppers with the retailers, goods and services that will resonate with the local community".

The recently completed expansions at Westfield Miranda and Garden City Mt Gravatt each introduced new domestic and international retailers with over 100 new specialty stores, together with food, dining and entertainment precincts tailored to the local market.

Federation Centres will also add a new Legoland Discovery Centre to its Chadstone, Melbourne shopping centre in Melbourne to attract kids, big and small.

While there was a Lego Centre at Birkenhead Point in the 1980's, the Melbourne outlet is a new concept by Lego and offers a range of activities from interactive games to a cinema and rides, all made out of Lego blocks.